While reviewing our accounts, I happened to notice that E*Trade charged us a $40 Account Service Fee for our stock trading account since we have not made any trades in the last quarter.

It’s my fault that I did not read the fine print, but a $40 fee on a ~$300 balance is ridiculous. I’ve put a sell limit order in for our remaining 20 shares of BofA stock for $17/share (we bought at $14/share). The stock is currently at $16.66/share. I hope it will sell next week so we can get this money in to savings and away from insane fees.

We sold 86 shares of our Bank of America stock today for $17.50/share. We purchased 106 shares of the stock for $14.00/share back in January, so after fees, we earned over a 20% gain. That’s a lot more than we would have earned keeping the money in our savings account for 9 months.

Selling the 86 shares basically cashes out the $1,500 that we originally invested. We’re going to let the remaining 20 shares ride. This is money (currently ~$350) can now grow without any risk to our original $1,500.

. . .but it’s expensive entertainment.

We purchased 106 shares of Bank of America stock (symbol: BAC) on January 7 for $14/share. It is currently worth about 1/2 of what we paid for it. Opps. Apparently, the drop in share price is the response to Bank of America seeking additional government aid to absorb credit losses at Merrill Lynch, which they bought on January 1.

We didn’t expect the stock to go up immediately, but we also didn’t expect it to plummet either. We will wait and watch.

We sold our Toyota Motor Corporation stock (symbol: TM) for a small gain in mid December because we wanted to increase our savings once we got word my wife was to be laid off January 1st. Well this money didn’t stay in our savings account long because we purchased 106 shares Bank of America Corporation stock (symbol: BAC) today of for $14/share.

We’ve been wanting to take advantage of the depressed stock market as much as we’re able to and the financial sector is about as depressed as it gets. We chose to purchase Bank of America stock because we felt it offered the best combination of risk and reward.

Bank of America purchased Merrill Lynch this month, making them the largest financial services company in the world. It seems like they have positioned themselves nicely during this bad economy to come back strong when it rebounds.

For the 4 years prior to 2008, Bank of America stock has been over $40/share, and at times, over $50/share. Taking a look at Bank of America stock price over the last 52-weeks, their high was $45.08/share and their low was $10.01/share. That being said, we believe there is very good upside potential. . .time will tell.

What’s interesting is that we do not bank with Bank of America because they got a little fee crazy and I had to close my account a couple of years ago. The flip side is that all of those fees make for a profitable business. Let’s hope we can share in that profit.

With my wife’s lay off come January 1st, and my company not doing so red hot, we decided to sell our 15 shares of Toyota Motor Corporation stock and add the money to our savings account.

We purchased the stock at $65/share on November 11th and sold for $68.16/share today. Because of a promotion E*TRADE is having, we did not have to pay the $12.99 fee to buy or sell, so we made $47.40 in 37 days. That’s almost double the interest we earned last month on the ~$10K in our savings account.

In better economic times, I would have liked to hold out for a larger return, but it’s nice to be able to add this money to our savings account for now.

After selling our 15 shares of Toyota Motor Corporation stock (ticker TM) for a 26% gain in 19 days, we’ve been eagerly waiting to buy back in.

Well, on Tuesday we got our chance to pick up another 15 shares when the stock dropped to $65/share. Since we bought, it’s come down to ~$62/share, but I’m confident it will work its way back up.

Our goal will be to sell when it hits ~$85/share.

We sold our 15 shares of Toyota Motor Corporation yesterday morning for $82.81/share. Not too bad considering we bought it for $63.71/share just 19 days prior. We ended up made $260.67 after subtracting $12.99 for purchasing the stock and $12.99 for selling the stock.

Toyota’s stock started dropping shortly after we sold and today hit a low of $64.80/share. So, we put in a buy request for 15 shares at $61/share. Unfortunately, it never got that low, but there’s always tomorrow.

With the market beaten down pretty bad, we figure now is a perfect time for us to buy some individual stock with a little “play money”.

We took $1,000 out of savings and opened an E*TRADE stock trading account. My wife and I have had our eyes on a few stocks, but ended up choosing Toyota Motor Corporation (ticker TM) because we feel it is a strong company and will likely recover nicely when the economy turns around. We purchased 15 shares of Toyota on Thursday for $63.71/share. In the last month, it dropped from right around $90/share to its current price of $67.10/share. 12 months ago, it was at around $114/share.

We’ll see where it goes from here. With the volitliy of the market, I’m sure it will shoot above and below our purchase price. We hope to take some profits if it works its way back up to $90/share.